You told me that day.
The most southeast we could possibly be,
(And we never sat there.)
Deadness of light on a linoleum table,
(And that light was always out.)
Isolated from play time,
(Because we were always late to
recess, we were slow eaters.)
You told me.
I knew that look, when you would begin to cry.
But you cried at everything,
So why should I be worried this time?
I’ve begged my memory too many times for context.
What I remember:
Misty-eyed you: “Something bad happened.”
I wish I could have understood then that you were a museum,
you were your father’s occupation, your lineage; you were the love child of an
angry mother and an immature father, the product of a Catholic marriage, a
product of your swim team and your banisters and your light orange walls.
“Did someone die?”
“Sort of.”
But how could someone sort of die?
How could someone be dead and also not?
I thought I knew that look you had. Sort of.
I think we were 9 years old.
You told me, in those words,
“People are fragile.” Sort of.
“But you can’t tell anyone.” Sort of.
“He went to Hell.” Sort of.
Before desperation made any sense-
Before depression and suicide were terms in our vernacular.
Before,
Before I knew that people sometimes take their own lives.
Because to develop is to mature is to learn is to comprehend
Comprehend something as horrific, as toxic
As suicide.
“Sort of.”
